


This is Not Magic

by rewmariewrites



Series: Teen Wolf Shorts [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Corvid Prompts, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mind Meld, Nemeton, Nemeton!Stiles, Panic Attack, Ritual of the Week, Rituals, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinksi/Derek Hale if you squint, Stiles Stilinski Saves The Day, Stiles Stilinski is Part of the Pack, Stiles is smart, Tumblr Prompt, is it a mind meld if one of the parties is a primordial consciousness?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 21:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewmariewrites/pseuds/rewmariewrites
Summary: Breathe in. Exhale. Breathe. The ritual should have worked by now - something should be happening.Are you here?





	This is Not Magic

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by corvidprompts on tumblr. You can find the post here:  
> http://rewmariewrites.tumblr.com/post/181443925862/corvidprompts-breathe-in-exhale-breathe-are
> 
> hope you like it <3

Breathe in. Exhale. Breathe. The ritual should have worked by now - something should be happening.

_Are you here?_

Stiles’ eyes snap wide open, and he can’t help giving a little shake of his head, like there’s water stuck in his ears.

His Pack stares back. Derek and Scott take stuttered steps forward, but they can’t get to him even if they wanted to. The mountain ash circle is to keep them out as much as it is to keep Stiles _in._

_Are you here? Are you thinking? Hello, witchling._

Stiles can’t think. Well - he’s thinking now, sure, but he can’t actually _think._ His mind is whirling with so much panic and so many possibilities that it’s all blurred together into white noise, and the static is leaking out his ears to fill the space inside the mountain ash circle.

A spark flits towards the Pack, bounces off the barrier.

Breathe.

_Do you feel the rain? Do you feel the lightning? Oh, there is thunder behind your eyes._

The voice is soft like air over wings, harsh like a mountain crashing down, and everything in-between all at once. Stiles can’t decide whether keeping his eyes open or closed is better, so he vacillates between the two. It’s freaking out the Pack. It’s freaking _him_ out, too.

He _can_ feel the rain. It washes across his skin and feels like droplets over leaves, like rivulets over branches, like pellets hitting tough bark over a trunk.

He _can_ feel the lightning. It hits with force, outside Deaton’s clinic but also all around him. It hits the ground and Stiles can feel the burn of it all the way up to his knees, and it feels like it’s travelling up his roots to hit his soul. He wonders if the soles of his feet are burnt, a little, or if the small root-growths that have been budding for months have all been burnt away.

The thunder crashes _(one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand - )_ and Stiles can feel the build of it in his sinus cavity the moment before it comes down around them like a thousand cymbals being hit all at once. It’s thunder and it’s more than that, and it feels like something is waking and breaking inside him simultaneously.

(The pack doesn’t flinch. Stiles would have - he would have dropped to the floor and taken up the fetal position - but his roots won’t let him move just yet.)

_Do you know what this is? Do you know where you are? Hello, witchling. Hello._

Stiles has no idea what’s happening. This was supposed to be - well. This was _supposed_ to be a last-ditch effort because it _was_ a last-ditch effort, so he supposes this is just what last-ditch feels like. He’s here, in Deaton’s vet clinic with the Pack surrounding him just in case something goes wrong, but he’s also -

He’s also _the forest._ He’s _in_ the forest and he _is_ the forest and the forest is _him_ and the forest is _in him._

And the forest is saying _hello_ to him.

 _This is the cry of a newborn babe, left by a rivers’ bed,_ the voice whispers, cool and smooth as a winter snowstorm across the inside of Stiles’ mind.

A cry sounds, loud and insistent, _young,_ and Stiles’ head snaps around towards the sound before he can even register that he heard it. The Pack doesn’t seem to hear anything, and Erica lets out something that’s either a growl or a whine or a little bit of both.

Boyd is holding her tightly against his chest, her back to his front. Allison is gripping Scott’s arm _tightly_ in one hand, the other clenching-releasing-clenching in the fabric of Isaac’s shirt. Derek is just - standing there, his eyes Alpha-red, looking like he’s been _gutted._

They’re all terrified.

Stiles is terrified. Was terrified.

Stiles should be terrified.

 _This is the sound of a thousand cicadas at night,_ the voice says, and the sound turns from cries to screaming, the screaming of the trees themselves and all those that live within them. They scream for life, for death, for everything, for anything, for nothing.

 _This is the endless expanse of the night sky on a dark night,_ the voice screams, and it’s soft as a mothers’ caress against Stiles’ senses, even while it grates across the inside of his skull like werewolf claws on a chalkboard.

Stiles’ vision goes black, and he sees nothing. He sees everything. He sees every star in the sky, every flying thing that graces its endless expanses. He sees all the bugs, all the birds, all the mammals, and even though he can’t feel anything _(he feels everything)_ he thinks he feels himself let out a sob that he can’t hear.

His arms, somehow, have wound themselves tightly around his torso, and he thinks that might be part of the reason it’s a little hard to breathe.

(He thinks he hears growling in the background - snarling, a desperate scrabbling -but it’s so hard to separate that noise from the forest in his head that he ignores it.)

It must be magic making him feel this way. It must be _his_ magic, making him see and hear things, making his throat close up in panic even though it didn’t work, even though he _can’t feel anything -_

_This is not magic. Do you know where you are?_

He doesn’t. Is he somewhere? Has he ever been anywhere? Does he exist? He can’t really remember.

He was somewhere once - somewhere safe, with friends. Did he have friends? He must have, at one point, if he knows what friends are. He must have had a few, even if it feels like he doesn’t. Even if it feels like he never did.

He was somewhere, because he knows what somewhere is - if he was somewhere, is he still there? Is it safe? He hopes so. He’s scared, he thinks, a little bit. A lot. He’s _very_ scared, now that he thinks about it, even though the feeling sits just underneath his skin like it’s on the other side of a pane of glass. He can feel it if he tries, can reach it if he really wants to, but… does he want to?

The feeling comes, and suddenly he’s _overwhelmed._ All the terror he’s ever felt, all the terror he will ever feel, all the terror of the forest comes crashing down around him like the thunder from earlier and -

\- something sharp hits his knees. The ground. He’s fallen to his knees on the floor of Deaton’s clinic.

Oh, that’s right, he’s in Deaton’s clinic. He’s Stiles.

He forgot. How could he forget?

_Breathe, witchling. I am not here to harm you._

Yeah, _sure._ That’s what it feels like, like this primordial consciousness that Stiles _willingly_ inserted into his brain _isn’t_ here to harm him.

(Why did he do this willingly? That was _so_ stupid.)

He can feel every hurt of every being in the forest. Of all the forests, everywhere. How does anything function like this, with the entire _world_ burning beneath their skin?

(His skin feels like bark feels like skin feels like bark. Is he Stiles, or is he the Nemeton?)

_The cougar kills the deer, the moose tramples the coyote. They do not mean to harm, they only do. I am not here to harm, I only am._

_And I am here, offering you a hand. Do you know where you are?_

Stiles does not know.

He was in Deaton’s clinic. He is in Deaton’s clinic?

He is in the forest. He is the forest?

_Coil the yarn, snip the string, pour the wax into the candle mold. Move your hands, witchling._

A crow flits across Stiles’ vision, it croaks into the abyss of the night, and he’s no longer looking at the night sky. It’s still dark, it’s still not Deaton’s clinic, but it’s different than it was and that seems like progress.

Breathe.

It feels a little like he’s been told to stop panicking and to get his shit together, so that’s what he tries to do.

Stiles moves his fingertips, then his fingers, then his hands. He releases his hold on himself and winces at the bruises he can feel forming across his hips, and the crescent-moon cuts from his nails in his skin. He can breathe a little easier now, and he’s not sure if it’s because he was holding himself too tightly or if he’s starting to get used to the extra consciousness in his head.

_Hello, witchling! Do you know where you are? Do you remember?_

Stiles remembers where he should be, but this is not it. So he _remembers,_ but he doesn’t _know._

Will it always be like this? Will he always only have half of the puzzle pieces? He’s never been very good at not knowing things - knowing was kind of his _thing,_ before, and he doesn’t know if he can give that up.

_This is the dark of a mother’s womb. This is the warmth of the heart of a star. The cold expanse of a melting tundra. This is the end, this is the beginning._

Stiles… understands. He understands even as he cannot comprehend, and the moment he acknowledges that the voice makes a noise a little like a laugh, and it comes from one and a thousand voices, a thousand and one directions, all at once.

 _(That’s_ something he’ll probably never get used to, this magic that bubbles inside his soul. This magic that exists inside and outside and around him, magic he didn’t even know existed until this moment.)

 _Set aside your knitting, put away your paintbrush, child._ **_Look._ ** _This is the yet-un-made, the forever-end. This is not magic._

Bullshit.

_Why did you wander here, witchling? How did you find your way to me?_

It’s then that Stiles remembers - _the Pack._ Derek, Scott, Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Allison, Jackson, Lydia -

He spins wildly, trying to find them even though all he can see is the dark expanse of the beginning and end of worlds, of life and death. When he moves his feet it feels like he’s tearing himself from the earth, from the fabric of physical realms.

_No - attention on me. There is no way to leave this place alone. You have walked too far._

_Fuck._ He’s trapped. He’s trapped in his own mind with a primordial being he doesn’t understand, that he can barely even comprehend, that he _invited there._

He needs to get back. He did this to save everyone, and he can’t save everyone if he’s not _there._ The Nemeton was _dying_ and the only way to keep it safe - to keep the town safe, to keep the Preserve alive - was to put it _into_ someone, and Stiles was that someone.

(He’s realizing now that this is _so much bigger_ than just saving the Preserve, or Beacon Hills. Beacon Hills is basically just a _metaphor_ for the world at large, and the Preserve is dying because its a forest connected to the Nemeton, and the Nemeton is dying because its connected to _all_ the forests, and _all_ the forests are dying because _the world is dying._

This is the beginning. This is the end.)

Stiles knows where he is, and he remembers why he came here.

_The chicks follow the duck, the cat eats the pigeon. I am not preparing dinner: you are here, at every beginning and at every end. This is not a magic place._

The voice sounds pleased that Stiles finally understands.

(It shouldn’t be a surprise - knowing things is what Stiles _does._ And, apparently, speaking in riddles is what the voice does.)

It’s not magic that Stiles welcomed into his head, it’s the _earth._ Which is pretty magical in itself, if you think about it. Not to mention the magic of the ritual he performed to _get_ it into his head in the first place.

_This is not magic._

Okay, or not.

Stiles takes a deep breath, and he can feel his lungs expand and contract. They still feel a little like branches _(swaying in the deep-wind at the mountain-tops, in the valleys-wide, in the oceans-deep)_ but it also feels pretty human, so Stiles considers that a win.

His chest still feels a little like a den, a burrow, a hearth and a home and a nesting-place, but it felt a little like that before, too. He can feel his heart beating again, though, so he must be coming back into himself a little bit. As much as he can when he’s sharing his body, at least.

He can’t hear or see it, but he can feel movement just out of his reach, and he knows that it’s them - his _friends,_ his _Pack,_ his _anchors._

The voice sighs with all the winds of the world, and all the terrified tension in Stiles’ body finally melts away.

This is how things are now - he is the beginning and the end. He is the forest, he is every animal.

He is the Nemeton, and the Nemeton is him.

Well. Right now they are separate: Stiles and the Nemeton reside in the same body, but they’re still individual entities. It won’t always be that way - Stiles knows this with the same intense clarity with which he knows that his mother is dead, his eyes are brown, Scott is his best friend, Derek is his Alpha - but right now, Stiles is separate from the Nemeton and he has travelled too far into his own mind to find his way out by himself.

_Hello, witchling. Come with me._

He lets the Nemeton lead him home.

His friends are going to be _so_ pissed he got lost in the first place.

  


**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at rewmariewrites.tumblr.com!


End file.
